Collosal Misdeeds
by The Bud
Summary: I got the idea for this from a review to another writer's story. Scott, Jean, Emma, Kitty, Rachel and others to come later deal with Scott and Emma's relationship and Jean's return.
1. Chapter 1

I don't own this, but I got the idea from a review to another story.

Colossal Misdeeds.

"So. You're back, I can't really say I'm surprised." The blonde woman doesn't even look away from her task of filling out paperwork involving the newest student. "You know you can't have him back."

"I'm the one who told him to be with you." A red head of celestial beauty replies as she glides across the floor effortlessly. Time has passed, and other than that her once flowing hair is cut short, she still looks the same as the day she became Phoenix. Everyone and everything has aged around her by ten years, but her, and maybe Logan. "I'm not here to get him back. I want to talk with him."

"Talk all you want, but if you must know, you've caused nothing but trouble for us." The blonde woman, Emma, finally looks up, slamming the screen down on her very expensive laptop. "We've had to fill out all sorts of paperwork to bring you back from the dead, not to mention the lies Hank had to tell the government and the whole problem that I thought had been resolved with Kitty and Pioter's objection to Scott and My relationship has reared it's ugly head." She breathes, red faced and her breasts heaving. "Not to mention the problems with Rachel. What did you think your sudden return after all these years would do to her? Hasn't she suffered enough because of you?"

"I would have returned sooner Emma," The red head, Jean to some, Phoenix to most of the universe, calmly states. "But the space traders delayed that a number of years and it wasn't as though I hadn't tried to contact somebody."

"By giving nightmares to my children?" Emma shouts as she pounds her hands into the table. "What king of monster are you?" She demands in the voice of an exasperated wife and tired mother.

"I couldn't have even known your daughter would pick up my distress call in that way, Emma. I hadn't even known Scott had children until I finally managed to contact Charles." She pauses. "I understand this has caused you grief, but I'd never intentionally harm a child. It must have been backlash though Scott's and my old rapport. I'm sorry for what happened to your daughter."

"Your half-hearted apologies aren't going to make this any better." Emma sinks back into her leather chair.

"Then what is it you want?" Jean asks as she places herself on the worn couch in Emma's office. The same worn couch Charles had counseled her on so many times, over so many things, for so many years.

"You're here, so there's no getting rid of you." Emma sighs. "I don't know what's right to do here."

"I won't stay where I'm not wanted, Emma, but this is my home." She says as she picks up the tattered, blue book on the table. "This is the one I levitated when I had to demonstrate my powers coming here. Fancy that being here." She attempted lighter conversation.

"Charles placed that there. After you died, he asked it not to be moved." Emma says as she slides a weary hand down her face. "He should be on his way back from Egypt to see you. He wants to talk to you about what the Shi'ar did to your family."

"Scott said something like that over the communications bridge of Corsair's ship." Jean looks away. "He also said that Sinister has suddenly become very interested in our bloodlines again."

A knock at the door brings Logan in, looking around almost as though he is nervous. "Uh, Scott sent me to make sure you girls are playing nice, and to come get you, Jeannie." One would have to be a fool not to see the look passed between Jean and Logan, and Emma was never anybody's fool.

"What's this now?" Emma asks. "You do move fast."

"We've been seeing each other long distance for awhile." Logan smiles his cocky smile. "It's been real open."

Down the hall, a conversation has been brewing. It's not an easy conversation, but it addresses the issues that have been lurking behind the closed oak doors of this old mansion.

"I still think what you're doing is wrong, Scott." Kitty argues in her eloquent politicians tongue. "I still think everything you did to Jean was wrong."

"I'm telling you for the last time, Jean, herself told me to move on." Scott pulls his hands through his hair. "I would have had to anyways. Why are we having this conversation now instead of ten years ago?"

"Ten years ago, I was young and my opinion meant squat, now that you've matured to my level, it seemed time." Kitty replies. "Besides, I'm the one having to console your daughter through her drunken haze over this. Where are you for her?"

"I'm here for her whenever she wants, Kitty." Scott looks at her crossly. "Besides, Rachel left me and changed her last name, what am I supposed to think? What am I going to do with her when she won't even return my calls?"

"That she's hurt and confused and needs your help more than ever." Kitty softens. "She needed you after John, Eileen and the twins were killed. You weren't there for her, you were with Emma, what was she going to think?"

"You're right, Kitty. You are, but I've got much I need to talk with Jean about right now. Can we finish this later?" He asks as he hears Logan's boots clunking down the hall.

"Later, Scott." She breathes easy. "But Pioter wants to talk to you too." So she leaves, and a new chapter begins.


	2. deux

There is no way I own this, please don't sue.

An Enemy Found With the Self.

"I never really got a chance to apologize for hurting you." It's an odd thing to say, but completely natural when greeting someone back again from the dead. In some ways, it's all I could think to say to her, all I've thought about since I buried her, but when her grave was found blown open and empty, I knew she'd be back. She never stays dead for long, if she ever really is dead when we place her in the ground. After everything that's happened all these long years, I didn't want to believe she's actually here.

It's a long story, but my father recognized her from a vessel they raided, rescued her, and eventually, she was returned home. That's why she stands here with me. I knew Jean Grey best, and I know this is her.

"I heard you the first time." She smiles at me sweetly. I never figured she could hear me in her grave, but she is a telepath, after all.

"I didn't believe Logan when he said he found you." I pause before the important questions. "Where were you?" We had picked faint signals from her over the past five years, she's been gone nearly ten, but she doesn't even look a day older than when she bled to "death" in my arms. At least not until the weariness over her ordeal wipes across her face, still only aging her slightly.

"Oh, Scott, you don't want to know, trust me." She tells me quietly while never breaking her gaze at me. I can't understand what on earth she's trying to spare me. I can't help but to wonder what ever was done to her.

"I remarried, I've got kids." I break to her. Somehow, I think she knew that. She always did guess more things than I ever had to tell her.

"I know. I was sort of there." She must have been trying to contact us for so long, but only her father, poor dead John Grey, could hear her. Rachel got a vision one time, one that nearly shattered her, but Jean's father just knew. "I've been seeing somebody for a while, kind of, a very long distance kind of thing." She pauses, almost as though she's trying to lessen the sting to my heart. "He wants to get married, when I get settled. I guess I still have time for children."

"Your family's dead." I tell her bluntly. Bluntly in this kind of thing is always better than sugar coating anything. "It was the Shi'ar. Only Rachel survived."

"She told me." Her voice gets almost a growl to it. "I'll be sure to make them pay." She turns slightly, and I catch a glimpse on her shoulder of what must be something similar to the mark the Shi'ar marked Rachel with. Now I know that they must have just absolutely tortured her, but even they shouldn't be so foolish as to think she could be broken.

"Who is he?" I get around to working up enough courage to ask.

"He?" She looks at me. I'm stupid, too much time passed between that part of our conversation and now.

"The man you've kind of been seeing." I remind her. "What kind of long distance relationship has it been?"

"Galaxies. And until I set foot back on terra ferma, it was pretty open. We could do as each wanted, just as long as we touched base with each other." She shakes her head at me that I even asked. "I don't inquire about you and Emma. By the way, where is all my stuff?"

"Storage, now don't skirt the issue. Who is he?" I'm demanding now, not simply because she still has a place in my heart, but because I feel it my job to protect her.

"Why don't you find out by asking him?" She looks at me sternly. "He's right outside."

"I should have known. He always was the love of your life." I can't look at her, I feel like crying, but I just can't. "And you, his."

"But not my soul mate, Scott." She holds my hand as though to comfort me. "You got to live your life happier without me because you have Emma and the kids." She breathes slightly as though she's tired, and with the journey back she's made, I don't blame her. "I at least deserve to try to be happy."

"You know, every time he's near death, he says he sees you, that you pull him back. Is that true?" I don't really want to know, but I need to know. What is she truly? "Besides, when did you ever believe in such a thing as a "Soul mate"? I chide her.

"Yes, Scott." Her weary eyes close for a minute. "I guess I am there when he "dies", but I never believed in a complete soul mate, just somebody, for no reason whatsoever that one would be willing to do whatever to sacrifice life for."

"I've seen him with other women." I caution her, but, once again, she knows. "Are you willing to make that sacrifice for him?"

"I've seen you with other women, and I've taken that risk for you. It's nothing new and earth shattering, Scott." She looks away again. "I've been with other men."

"And I know not all were willingly, Jean, but you didn't answer my question." I know she's avoiding it. I know that look she gives me, the solid resolve to never take another life again. I've made that resolve myself all too many times and all too many times, I've failed. And… I know, so has she. I must have asked the wrong question as her brave front develops a crack, and I see a tear, just a tear, but I know the flood behind it. "Shh, baby, I'm sorry Jean, please don't cry!" I plead with her, as I hold her again.

"I'm… alright, Scott." She tells me as she pushes me away. "Just not all of my experiences were… pleasant. I'll be O.K." She assures me. I know she will be eventually, just not now.

I don't really get the chance to wrap my arms around her before she changes the subject to getting a job, maybe even returning to modeling, and bringing up the fact that it takes a lot of work to bring a person back to life.

"Jean, don't think that we are past talking about what happened to you." I raise my eyebrow at her. "And you know you always have a place here, and a job, and Hank has already gotten your death certificate retracted by claiming that you lay comatose in some third world hospital and we only found you recently." I place my hand under her slim chin. "When you are ready, I'll listen."

"Scott, I'm not the Jean Grey you knew." She tells me, but this time, it's me that already knew. "And I wouldn't expect you to ever trust me again if you knew the things I've done these past ten years."

"Does Logan know?" I quietly ask. "Jean, I know you, I know what you're capable of, but I also know that you are so compassionate and forgiving that you revived the woman who tore your world apart. Why can't you show yourself that same level of compassion?"

"Yes, Logan knows, I've shown him all of it, and he still wants me." She gets stern with me and I almost feel like we are back in time, back before I vowed to forever keep her safe, and failed. I promised myself I'd never let her die, but I was young and love struck. Stupidly making promises I couldn't keep. I remember now what time has dulled to just interesting snippets of memory. Her temper, her flair for life and the determination and drive that flashes in her eyes comes rushing back. "And lets not talk of Emma. She's a wreck just that I'm here, you should talk to her."

I open my mouth to protest her tone of voice, but a knock at the door interrupts me. It's Logan and Emma, just in the nick of time to prevent my mouth from causing me more trouble than I can deal with right now.

"I guess you told him about us." Logan asks as he comes to stand beside Jean, his boots bringing him almost to her height. "Scott, your father and his crew want to know what you want done with the ship."

"Is it badly damaged?" I ask. It's a moronic question, of course it is, whomever they stole Jean back from didn't let her go without a fight.

"Not really in good shape, no." Logan replies in his usual smart assed fashion.

"It they can, have them stash it in the hanger and come inside. If not, use one of the cloaking devices and park it out back." I tell him irately. "Tell Corsair, thank you. He'll know what for."

"Rachel wants to see you." Emma says, although I'm not sure whether she's referring to myself, or Jean.

"Wants to see whom?" Scott asks as he looks at his wife.

"You, Scott." Emma says. "Just you. She said she need you."

"Tell her I'm ready." He turns to Jean. "I'll have Logan get your clothes from storage, Jean, then we'll set you up with something Charles put away in case you ever came back. It's not much, but it's enough to get started on."

"Thank you, Scott." She says simply as she exits the room, her fiery halo illuminating the walls as she passes and another chapter begins to open.


	3. Fathers and Daughters

Still don't own this. Please don't sue.

Fathers and Daughters.

"You really wanted to see me?" Scott asks as he hesitates before hugging his daughter. "Not your mother? Oh, Rachel. It's been too long!"

"I know Dad." She says as best she can, being squished in her fathers warm arms. "I don't like what you did, but it's not fair to my brother and sisters to be mad so long." She pauses as she returns his hug and steps back. "I know that you two won't ever be a couple again, but, for my sake and everyone around here, can you be friends?"

"We'll work on it, but that means you and Emma need to work on yours." He steps back to look at how thin she's become. "You're in your twenties now, Emma and I have been married ten years now. I hate to say it, but you need to quit acting like a child and acknowledge she is my wife."

"Dad, that's only a little of the problem." She shakes her head that her father has it so wrong. "When Mom "died", and you got together with Emma, it meant that I wouldn't be born, not in this timeline, anyways." She looks at him and smiles her mother's smile. "One day, I'll just fade out and none of you might remember me as the time lines fix themselves. Your marring Emma was like a death sentence to me, now with Mom back, and Sinister hounding us, I could be born anyhow." She exhales. "Do you know what it's like living the last ten years waiting to die? And now it might not come at all?"

"I always wanted to have children in this timeline with your mother, but Rachel, I don't think that will happen." Scott holds her. "And you've disappeared before and some form of you came back."

"Some form of me, but not me. The next stop is the future where I form the Askani." She buries her crying face into his chest. "I don't want that future."

"That future might not come." Scott wipes her tears away. "In that future, Jean and I had descendants, you included. Not to mention my being possessed by Apocalypse never happened in that future. Besides, my descendants might be through you, with someone here."

"If that timeline doesn't happen, how would Cable still be alive?" She looks at him.

"A very different one where you still save my son." He turns away from her to hide his own emotions. "It was very hard to give him away like that. I was still his father and in that Askani time line, I still raised him, but not as his father, but as Slimm. Do you know how hard it was to keep that from him? How hard I fought to stay with him when it came time to leave?" He shakes his head. "I don't want to have to do that with you."

"Did you still love her when she died?" Rachel gathers the courage to ask. "Or were you going to leave her for Emma?"

"I loved her still, but not the same way as when I married her." He confesses. "I think I may have been changing with my feelings before she even asked me to marry her, I just didn't want to hurt her."

"But you must have asked her a dozen times before she asked you, dad." Rachel says to him, trying to understand. "If you weren't sure, why did you still marry her?"

"Because there was still something there. I'd wanted her ever since I first saw her, but over time, I think it was because I was comfortable with her." He sighs a heavy sigh, almost as though getting it off his chest was good for his very state of mind. "I actually took her up there not to watch that Thanksgiving football game but to tell her I wanted to just be friends. Not an easy thing to do after six years of dating. She proposed suddenly, and I said "yes" I thought I could trick myself into loving her again."

"Have you ever told anyone this?" She looks at him, teary eyed.

"Never. I kept it all inside. I think she knew later on though, that's why she told me to move on and be happy." Scott replies relieved.

"I'm glad that you trust me enough to tell me, but at the end, at that very end, who was it you decided to stay with?" She lowers her voice as though trying to keep a secret.

"Your mother. I guess I owed it to her, but Magneto made that choice for me." He finally sits down, with Rachel to join him. "Things were already on their way with Emma and happened so fast, I guess I just didn't think about how it would affect you."

"Why weren't you there for me when my family was massacred by the Shi'ar?" She looks him in the eye and demands an answer. "I needed you the most then and you abandoned me for something about Emma."

"That's not fair, Rachel." He stands to look at her. "You'd pushed me so far away, I didn't know how to be there for you. You even changed your name and refused contact, what was I to do?"

"I don't know what you could have done for me, but why didn't you come to the funeral?" She grimaces. "Even if it was just you? I felt so alone in that sea of Grandpa's colleagues, none of them knowing who I was or why I was so sad."

"I should have, sweetie. I should have." He consoles her. "It was selfish of me, but I thought of you every day. It doesn't help, I know, but I missed you and I wanted to be there for you. You know your Grandpa would have seen me there as a disservice because he thought of me as "the man who left his little girl for another woman." Your grandmother wouldn't have wanted me there either, but funerals aren't for the dead, they're for the living, as a way to say goodbye. I should have sucked up my fears and been there for you. Whether you wanted me there or not."

"At the time, I'm not sure I did." She admits. "Before he died, he was telling me about how he saw Mom. I'd seen her too, and again after when I simply told her everyone was dead. She was so far away, that was all there was time for."

"I told her only that the Shi'ar were behind it." He frowns. "Did you say hello to your grandpa Chris?"

"He said he wants a word with you in the morning about docking the ship." She tries to smile. "It'll be odd to have Hepzibah as a grandmother."

"Dad always had a perchance for odd women." Scott attempts levity.

"What do you think happened to Mom?" Rachel puzzled. "She's blocked so much and there is so much she won't say, but Logan claims to know everything she went through. There's no telling what happened while D'Ken had her."

"I guess we'll have to wait for her to come around and tell us. I wonder how they controlled her. With Charles, they just beat him nearly to death, I don't even know where she was at the time." Scott's brow creased, a habit leading to his face starting to look older than his thirty something years. "Who had her before the Shi'ar? She'd mentioned space traders."

"Charles only came back six months ago, Dad. You weren't too kind to him when he became human, we just got Mom back." Rachel started.

"And?" Scott looks at her. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Charles knows something because after the way you treated him, kicking him out of his own house, no man would willingly step foot on these grounds." She stops. "I almost wouldn't."

"Hmnn. You may be right." He agrees. "And Rachel…"

"I know, Dad. Me too. I've got to go see Mom." She says as she exits the room. "Good luck with tomorrow."

"I'm going to need it." He smiles before sinking unto his couch after the door shuts, holding his head.


End file.
